The game: BOS is the big brother letting the little brother DET think they have a chance to win. Last year you could tell from the C's multitude of fist pumps and chest reveals that they were into the game and too the Pistons seriously. There were no such acts last night. (At least that I saw. I was ill last night and had triple vision by the end of the game so I might have seen some stuff that didn't happen and vice versa.)

The Pistons need a goon paint protector. BOS got too many straight waltzes down the paint with no one to challenge the shots.

Like the P's in 04-05 the C's are just bigger everywhere.

DET got the types of shots for Dyess (in particular) & Sheed that I look for but they were not hitting. Dyess & Tay were shooting knucklers. Couldn't you see some of these woes coming though after they chased the MN win?

Favorite play of the game: Stuckey was slowly walking the ball up court. Rip literally stood still in the back court for a 2 count after Stuckey passed him. They barely crossed half court in time and Stuckey continued walking the ball up to the elbow prompting Mark Jackson to say something like, 'Do they know there's a shot clock? Here they are with 10 seconds left on the clock and they haven't even started their set.'

The team: DET doesn't have any shooters at the 1,2 or 3 that any team needs to worry about. This is chicken & egg with the movement their wings do not generate with their penetration from opposition defenses. BOS got way more easy shots from their ability to do this to DET with Pierce and Rondo.

Is DET the only team in the L that doesn't screen out for their shooters? The Pistons look like they didn't even realize this was legal based on the way they reacted on D last night.

How long before they realize that the "hunt & peck" method to find the hot guard at the start of the game kills them?

The only way Kwame was going to work was if they started the year with him and took the lumps along the way hoping he improved. There is no way it was going to work playing him every 3-6 games.

Sooner or later an NBA player has got to be able to make a wide open jump shot from well inside the arc. This team can't consistently and they aren't going to win until that changes.

One way to help that along is to push the ball up, maybe get something easy, but at least get the defense reacting to you rather than the other way around. However, this team has absolutely no desire to play that way. They may as well walk the ball up, toss it to the opposition, let them check their defense to make sure it's set and then start the possession. Right now they are playing right into the defense's hands, and against a great defensive team that's just suicidal.

But they had a good defensive game themselves. I'm not sure you can hope for anymore against the Celts who average over a hundred. But if you don't score it just doesn't matter.

One more game full of incomprehensible substitutions. Pulling Max late in the fourth ought to be a fire-able offense.

The thing about Tay's pump fake is, it never, ever draws a foul. It's more like a nervous twitch than a scoring move.

Sorta like, dum-dee-dum I haven't done anything with the ball in 5 seconds, better buy some more time *PUMP FAKE*, we good.

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You and JZC make a good point here. One thing that has become a constant for DET against the MIA, CLE & BOS these last few years is how the CB, Rip and Tay trifecta all pump fake their way into tougher shots.

There are a lot of things at play here. But the main one is, we don't have anyone making everyone else better. And our guys need to be made better, because as single units, they are not very good.

For all of my complaining about Billups, he did do one thing well. He was the Mayor, and he was a perfect politician.

He had the Rip faction that said, "keep looking for me, fighting through screens to get open could burn 6 or 10 seconds"

He had the Tay faction that said, "don't force me to post up, I'll take your spot up Js"

He had the Sheed faction, "run some pick and pops so I can bang the tramp, keep me off that block yo"

And Billups would make sure everyone was fairly satisfied, and then get his own.

We have no one who makes anyone else better. Stuckey is not a passer. AI has zero chemistry with these guys (watch how often they all nearly bump into AI when he makes his moves), Tay is really bad with the ball, and Sheed (the one truly selfless passer) has rarely seen the ball with the 3 guards and Tay-Point-Tay dominating it.

Compound that with a coach who could possibly be the worst rookie coach ever, and this is not going well.

If we had kept Billups, I don't doubt Curry would have gone to a small ball lineup, played Stuck, sat Aff, played musical chairs with his bigs etc.

If I'm Sheed or Dice or AI at the end of my career, I don't have time to screw around with Mike Curry trying to micromanage possessions and changing the lineup and rotation every second game.

There are a lot of things at play here. But the main one is, we don't have anyone making everyone else better. And our guys need to be made better, because as single units, they are not very good.

For all of my complaining about Billups, he did do one thing well. He was the Mayor, and he was a perfect politician.

He had the Rip faction that said, "keep looking for me, fighting through screens to get open could burn 6 or 10 seconds"

He had the Tay faction that said, "don't force me to post up, I'll take your spot up Js"

He had the Sheed faction, "run some pick and pops so I can bang the tramp, keep me off that block yo"

And Billups would make sure everyone was fairly satisfied, and then get his own.

We have no one who makes anyone else better. Stuckey is not a passer. AI has zero chemistry with these guys (watch how often they all nearly bump into AI when he makes his moves), Tay is really bad with the ball, and Sheed (the one truly selfless passer) has rarely seen the ball with the 3 guards and Tay-Point-Tay dominating it.

Compound that with a coach who could possibly be the worst rookie coach ever, and this is not going well.

If we had kept Billups, I don't doubt Curry would have gone to a small ball lineup, played Stuck, sat Aff, played musical chairs with his bigs etc.

If I'm Sheed or Dice or AI at the end of my career, I don't have time to screw around with Mike Curry trying to micromanage possessions and changing the lineup and rotation every second game.

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Good Post Roscoe.

Stuckey is another shooting guard. He can play the point but he is not a PG. Also, you mentioned how all of the players seem to get in AI's way when he is on the floor. I would just like to add to that when other guy's have the ball they seem to always isolate AI to the opposite side of the ball when we play small ball. So the one guy that can create his own shoot is left standing around while the other 4 guys play hot potato with the ball and dribble out the shot clock because no one wants to shoot.

As the saying goes there are too many chiefs in the kitchen. In Curry's case he can't seem to decide which chief he wants in his kitchen and what type of meal he wants these guy's to prepare. So we end up with a bad meal that is undercooked and poorly seasoned.

I'm not sure the casual internet fan can appreciate the job Joe D did in assembling a guard dominated roster where none of them can handle ball or shoot all that well.

You mention a 3 guard line-up to a Piston fan and they dream of the glory days. Prior to the "trade" CB, Rip and Stuckey were going to save the day, but in reality the 3 of them had never shown any chemistry together. The same goes for the CB & Stuckey pair. They would be better than they are now, no doubt, but it wouldn't be good enough.

In all honesty, has there been 1 team that Rip matches up well at the 3 spot against?

Play of the game part 2: Tay gets iso'd on Perkins 20 feet away from the hoop and after roughly 111 dribbles ends up taking a heavily contested fall away J where the only chance of it going in would have been if KG caught it and shot at his own basket.

There is not another SF in the L that can't go to the hoop if he(?) gets matched up on a C. This, unfortunately, is Deeeeetroit Basketball.

I would imagine Davison is thrilled to hear about the end of the Kwame Brown "Experiment" after spending 8 mil for the guy. Its like buying an expensive new toy for someone that they never use.

Enough of this transition year garbage. You have too many people depending on this who do not want to wait or cannot afford to wait. Time is running out for AI and Dyess. For us fans - who wants to wait until 2010?

Well he couldn't do any worse than Curry at this point and betcha they listen to Joe...

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I'd go for anything at this point. And Joe does have a pretty commanding presence about him and there's no doubt that respect would not be an issue. Joe has had a big hand in all 3 championships this franchise has won.

I was thinking the same thing last night. Stuckey got slammed to the floor by Shaq and the rest of the Pistons just stood around looking at him crumpled on the floor. The same thing happened last night with Max. Atleast Max stood up for himself but what about the rest of the Pistons? It would have been nice to see the other guy's on the floor get in Shaq and Perkins face and let them know that crap is not going to be tollerated. No one huddled the team together and said these guy's are trying to punk us lets kick their butts or nothing. Instead we just folded and gave up a 10-2 run.

As far as Curry goes he is clearly in over his head.

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Our team is a bit soft IMO. The Pistons definitely aren't the most physical team in the league anymore... not even close.

You know Ben would've stood up for his teammates in those situations though... I still do miss the guy.

Tomorrow will be the first day in a long time that I'll watch the game on a TV screen (no cable).

The computer screen isn't that clear so last night twice I was thinking "good, AI is driving," and then he'd lose the ball and then the announcers would say Rip turned it over. One of them was in the third, I think, and then the other was in the last minutes of the game.

It may have happened more than twice but I fell asleep for a while, not because I was bored but because I'm pregnant and constantly tired.

It made me think. This hot mess of a season is over. The experiment that I think is done is "AI + best starting 3 = all equal teammates."

I'm really thinking they should just let AI be AI... for two reasons.

1) This team's not going anywhere so all the new AI Pistons jersey owners should just be allowed to enjoy the feeling of cheering on their future HOF'er while he's rented here and

2) AI will get blamed for this season so he might as well just be allowed to play his game and secure his next contract.

Keep in mind I can barely tell AI and Rip apart on my fuzzy web version of sleepy game watching but I think my plan is better than any Curry has come up with.

There are a lot of things at play here. But the main one is, we don't have anyone making everyone else better. And our guys need to be made better, because as single units, they are not very good.

For all of my complaining about Billups, he did do one thing well. He was the Mayor, and he was a perfect politician.

He had the Rip faction that said, "keep looking for me, fighting through screens to get open could burn 6 or 10 seconds"

He had the Tay faction that said, "don't force me to post up, I'll take your spot up Js"

He had the Sheed faction, "run some pick and pops so I can bang the tramp, keep me off that block yo"

And Billups would make sure everyone was fairly satisfied, and then get his own.

We have no one who makes anyone else better. Stuckey is not a passer. AI has zero chemistry with these guys (watch how often they all nearly bump into AI when he makes his moves), Tay is really bad with the ball, and Sheed (the one truly selfless passer) has rarely seen the ball with the 3 guards and Tay-Point-Tay dominating it.

Compound that with a coach who could possibly be the worst rookie coach ever, and this is not going well.

If we had kept Billups, I don't doubt Curry would have gone to a small ball lineup, played Stuck, sat Aff, played musical chairs with his bigs etc.

If I'm Sheed or Dice or AI at the end of my career, I don't have time to screw around with Mike Curry trying to micromanage possessions and changing the lineup and rotation every second game.

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Excellent post. No chemistry with AI. The one thing billups did was get everyone involved. I guess the salary dump was worth all of this mediocrity this year. Maybe curry didnt want billups or hunter around like semi-coaches. Curry wanted to shine.